


The Smell of Adventure

by PeregrineBones



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming of Age, Family, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8527795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeregrineBones/pseuds/PeregrineBones
Summary: Remus and Sirius have moved to Hogsmeade with their family. On a hot summer day, their daughter Aurora rides her bike into Hogsmeade and follows her nose.





	

Aurora Lupin-Black was not bored.

 

She was definitely not bored. But maybe a little twitchy. Moony got twitchy sometimes, so twitchy that Sirius would give him a funny look and say “Stop that twitching,” with a low growl in his voice, and Moony would retreat to his office, which wasn't really a room but a nook off the sitting room, and put on headphones through which came terribly depressing folk music from the 1970's and read large books and take notes until he felt better, which was usually dinner. And Aurora was more like Moony than anyone else in her large and rather complicated family, more like Moony than any of her brothers, or Sirius who was right now running around his pub in a whirl of cold soups and salads that seemed to involve a lot of seafood, anticipating a large crowd for the coming weekend, hassling the house elves and the young girl from the village who had been hired to help and getting any one who came within 10 feet of the kitchen to taste his latest concoction.

 

Aurora had looked forward to these last three days of the holidays with relish. Her cousins had left last night after two weeks of a glorious holiday together that had involved a lot of giggling and hair braiding and culminated in a spectacular production of one of their original plays, directed by her older cousin Anya with great seriousness and concentration, and lauded loudly by the adults. But Aurora had wanted a little time to read and dream before she returned to Hogwarts for her second year. The day had started out just as she had planned with two hours of reading in bed before she even dragged herself down to the kitchen to find some tea and toast. Then her little brothers had hauled her out to the back pasture, to the quidditch pitch. Sirius and Harry had laid it out in the beginning of the summer, when they had first moved to Hogsmeade from France. Aurora didn't really mind. She was an excellent Q  
\uidditch player and was hoping to make the Gryffindor team this fall. Leo, at 10 was a formidable opponent. Julian, at 7, mostly flew around like a human tornado, but he had excellent reflexes and Sirius all ready had high hopes for him as a seeker.

 

They had played until it got too hot. Now she was reading in the shade, her back against a tree trunk. Moony was splayed out near her in the hammock, his legs white and thin and hairy in a pair of faded denim shorts that he'd probably had since school. A lemonade was magically levitated beside him. At first glance you would have thought he was relaxing, but Aurora knew there was a huge stack of books and parchments beside him, and knew the little furrow between his eyes that meant he was not relaxed at all.

 

It was hot, and that was making the twitchiness worse. The cicadas were chirping noisily, singing goodbye to the summer with gusto. A fly buzzed somewhere with a slight menace to its tone, and an ant crawled over Aurora's bare foot. There was sweat on the back of her neck, and she wished for a hair tie. She was tired of reading. She closed her eyes for a few minutes, and the lazy sounds of the summer day got louder, so loud they filled her whole head. A slight breeze ruffled the trees above her and she heard Moony sigh. She opened her eyes and saw that he had fallen asleep, the furrow between his eyes now relaxed, a slight smile on his face, as if he were having a happy dream.

 

Aurora grinned and got up, found a leaf for a bookmark and went into the kitchen where chaos ruled and it was twice as hot as outside. “Hello love, taste this!” Sirius demanded as she poured herself a glass of the magically chilled lemonade that Dory, the house elf, always had waiting for them in hot weather. She settled on a kitchen stool and tasted the proffered food item, some of the seafood salad Sirius had been perfecting all morning, offered on a lettuce leaf. All the children in the family were experienced tasters. It really was very good. Lemony and light and slightly spicy. “Tarragon?” Aurora guessed and Sirius grinned and nodded. “'s'good” she approved and helped herself to some more from the very large bowl that was set in a tray of ice on the long butcher block sideboard. “Can I ride my bike into town?”

 

Sirius looked up from the large wooden board where he had 10 enchanted knives chopping 10 different kinds of vegetables for another salad and wiped the sweat from his brow. He grinned “Sure. What're you going to do?”

 

“Oh, I dunno, I have some money left over from babysitting, maybe get a few things for school?”

 

He smiled at her “Sounds like a plan. Where're your brothers?”

 

“River I think. Moony fell asleep in the hammock.”

 

“Poor bloke. He could use a nap. He's all worked up about his new job.”

 

Aurora finished her salad and wiped her mouth. “Can I go then?”

 

“Mmm, give us a kiss then and be home for dinner.”

 

“Eww, you're all sweaty!!” said Aurora in mock horror but she gave him a peck on the cheek, rinsed her plate in the stone sink, accepted a cookie from Dory and escaped.

 

Out on the road the heat was intense. The whole countryside was shimmering with it. The song of the cicadas reverberated in the still air. It was a short ride to Hogsmeade and Aurora knew where she wanted to go in town. In a few minutes she was pushing open the door to Tarish and Stearns, the tiny used bookstore where she was all ready a regular after only two months in the village, enjoying the jingle of the bell above the door and breathing the cool dusty air of the store.

 

“Ah, Miss Black. Welcome” said the tiny wizened wizard behind a huge desk, piled high with books.

 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Tarish,” said Aurora politely. He instantly went back to his reading, his wispy white head bent over an enormous volume, his long skinny finger marking his place as he read. Moony had told her that Mr. Tarish was part goblin and very old. Most of her classmates were afraid of him and avoided the shop, but he remembered Moony and Sirius from when they had been students, and he always treated Aurora with the respect of a fellow bibliophile.

 

The cool and quiet of the bookshop were a relief and Aurora browsed in there for almost an hour. She found an old Susan Cooper novel she hadn't yet read and paid seven sickles for it to Mr. Tarish who smiled approvingly at her choice. According to Moony, Mr Tarish was a big fan of Muggle literature. Out on the street, Hogsmeade seemed to be holding its breath. Most of the holidaymakers were off at the lake or the river, and the students had not yet started to arrive. Even the ice cream shop was quiet. Aurora browsed around a bit, buying some hair ties at Madame Marilyn's Magical Emporium and some treats for her owl at the pet shop. It was very satisfying to spend her own money, which had been easily earned babysitting for the two sweet little girls down the road, so much calmer than her own rambunctious younger brothers.

 

She still felt twitchy though. The sun was getting lower and a breeze was starting up, rustling the thin leaves in the trees high above her. She opened the packet of hair ties and swept her long blond hair into a loose bun above her head. The breeze on the back of her neck felt wonderful. She bent to stow her purchases in the saddlebags attached to her bike. She had grown taller over the summer and she was starting to get breasts. Aurora viewed these changes to her body with trepidation. She hadn't gotten her period yet, but she knew it was coming soon. She knew her parents were watching for it anxiously as well, though they didn't say anything. It would be different for her than for other girls. Aurora was a vampire, bitten when she was five years old, and rejected by her birth parents. She would probably have been killed as a threat to society if Sirius and Moony hadn't taken her in. The blood lust starts in puberty, that was what she had always been told. She knew there were ways, ways to get blood that did not involve hurting any one, ways to be safe. Moony had told her often enough. And he was a werewolf, turned when he was a child, just as she had been. He had never hurt anyone, not in all these years.

 

Aurora shook these thoughts from her head. She would deal with it when it happened, that was all. She started to unlock her bike when she caught a smell. Like a smell of a smell, a memory of a smell. She lifted her nose and stood up. It was the most wonderful thing. Like flowers and toffee and fresh turned earth, and the homey scent of Padfoot's fur drying in front of the fire on a damp spring day. It smelled like comfort and possibility and adventure all at once. She could just as soon not follow it as not breathe. Quietly, moving gracefully in spite of her changing body, she walked in the direction it was coming from. It led her down a shaded alley, where the houses were tall and leaned in on each other a little, laundry flapping on lines three stories above her, the sound of children playing suddenly clear and sharp in her ears. It led her up a flight of stairs, cool and damp, that opened to the street, then up a second flight of stairs, then a third, then a fourth and final flight that spiraled around a tower where the air seemed lighter and cooler, the smell ever stronger in her nostrils, the voices of the children fading, the laundry flapping below her now. She was a little short of breath but hardly noticed, the smell filling her head completely, driving out all thought.

 

The stairs ended in a landing with a blue door and a cat on a sisal mat. It was a tabby cat with large green eyes. Aurora bent to stroke it behind the ears and it purred, bucking its head up against her fingers in pleasure. The wonderful smell was all around her, filling her completely. She felt oddly relaxed. She knew the source lay beyond the blue door, she knew she would open the door soon, she knew there was no rush. A tiny part of her brain sent out a warning that perhaps her parents would not want her here at the top of a flight of stairs so long it felt as if she were above the entire world, surrounded by a wonderful aroma that had drawn her so powerfully she could barely think. That part of her brain was quickly quenched by a certainty that this was where she needed to be right now and with a last stroke behind the cat's ears she stood and knocked on the the door.

 

“Come in,” said a silvery female voice.

 

Aurora walked into a large room that was so airy and filled with light and shifting shadows that it felt as if she were outdoors. The delicious breeze that had started while she was still on the street, a million miles away, cooled her face and ruffled her hair. The wonderful smell surrounded her, not overpowering, but suffusing everything around her with that sense of peace and possibility. In the center of the room sat a large loom, strung with a complex arrangement of threads of different colors that seemed to shimmer and shift when Aurora looked directly at it. At the loom sat a woman who was both old and beautiful. She smiled at Aurora, and the wrinkles around her deep blue eyes deepened, which somehow made her look even more beautiful. Her hair was white, thick and curled around her face and down her back. She held out a long elegant hand and said in that silvery voice,

 

“Aurora, welcome. Don't be afraid. I am your friend.”

 

Aurora knew not to be afraid, although this was very strange. The woman beckoned and she went over to the loom.

 

“What are you weaving?” she asked, shyly.

 

“Oh, a little something to pass the time” the strange woman said lightly, ”Nothing to concern a young girl like you. A cloak to keep my old bones warm in the winter. That is all. Are you quite well?” she asked.

 

“I, think so, yes.” said Aurora, not sure what was meant by the question or how this strange woman knew her name.

 

“And you parents and your brothers, they are also well?”

 

It wasn't really a question. Aurora had no doubt the woman knew the exact state of her family's health, but she nodded, and whispered, “Yes, they're fine.”

 

“Have tea with me then. Yes?” The beautiful woman rose gracefully from her seat at the loom and gestured to a window seat built into an alcove where tea with some small sandwiches and biscuits was laid out. Aurora was suddenly ravenously hungry. A tiny voice in the back of her head said it might not be a great idea to eat the food offered by this woman who was clearly a powerful enchantress, but the same sense of safety and irresistible allure that had guided her up here in the first place won out easily over that little voice. She sat in the window seat. The view was breathtaking, encompassing the fields, the mountains and a small blue perfect lake. Aurora noticed storm clouds gathering to the west.

 

The food was delicious. Aurora ate and ate. The strange woman quickly put her at her ease, asking about school and the move from France, Remus' new job and Sirius' trials starting up the new pub, Harry's work as an Auror and his new tiny son, and her younger brothers’ exploits, as if she had been a member of their inner circle for years. Her hands were deft and sure as she poured the tea and served the sandwiches. She laughed knowingly as Aurora relayed the story of Moony falling asleep in the hammock, Sirius shouting and sweating in the kitchen. Her laugh was silvery and warm at the same time.

 

“But what about you my dear?” she asked finally, looking Aurora in the eye. “Are you ready for the change?”

 

Aurora thought for a minute. She looked into those deep blue eyes, more blue than any she had ever seen, “No” she whispered, suddenly realizing how scared she truly was. “How could I be?”

 

“You know Remus and Sirius will help you through,” she said

 

“And Baz,” whispered Aurora.

 

“Yes, and Baz, “ she agreed.

 

“Who are you?” whispered Aurora.

 

“Ah, I thought you'd never ask,” she said with a gentle laugh that sounded like water running over stones. “My name is Agatha. As you have probably guessed I am very old. My job is to help young girls, girls who might have an extra burden to bear. Know that I am here for you if ever you need help. You just need to wish for me and you will find me.

 

“Are you a witch?” asked Aurora.

 

“Of a sort, though a different sort than what you are used to perhaps.” She smiled, and Aurora got a sense that the visit was drawing to a close. “Come and visit with me again some time?” She rose and so did Aurora. “I have something for you before you go.”

 

She went to a cupboard against the wall that seemed to have a hundred tiny drawers. She came back with a small velvet bag with something heavy in it.

 

“Open it when you get home,” she said. “It will help you with the change.” She pressed her cool lips to Aurora's forehead. Aurora breathed in the deep wonderful scent of her.

 

“Can I tell?” she asked. The whole afternoon felt like a secret. She heard the rumble of thunder in the distance.

 

Agatha smiled. “I wouldn't want you to keep anything from your parents. I helped them when they were young once, you know”

 

“I thought you helped girls.”

 

“Boys too, sometimes. Did I forget to mention that?” Agatha laughed again.

 

“All boys, or just gay boys?” Aurora said, before she could stop herself.

 

“Any boy that needs a kind word and a listening ear,” said Agatha gently. “Come visit me again, Aurora, now that you have found me.”

 

And with that Aurora was out the door, descending the steps into the cooling afternoon, the lovely smell growing fainter as she descended the stairs, the velvet bag heavy and secret in her palm. When she got to the street the summer storm had broken, rain washing the cobbles of the ancient street, turning them shiny. Aurora wondered if Moony was still sleeping in the hammock when the storm broke, if his precious books and parchments had gotten wet. She smiled.

 

The storm was over quickly, leaving the air fresh and cool. Slowly, thoughtfully, Aurora unlocked her bike and started pedaling towards home. The sky was turning orange and the birds were twittering like mad in the trees about her before settling down for the night. The wonderful smell was gone, replaced by the smells of the world, wet grass and leaves, fresh earth and people's dinners cooking. Fall was coming, and school. Friends and classes and Quidditch tryouts, and the change. She squeezed the velvet packet tight in her hand and headed for home.


End file.
